Scan barcode
huangt07's review
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
scf2ke's review
4.0
Some stories were great (75% of them) while others bored me...this felt like an attempt at queering Lydia Davis or something? In a good way. Wish it was more subtle about trying to be contemporary (mentioning DMing and Tinder I guess?? Lol) overall enjoyed. A lot about sex, nuanced stories on gender....rural themes. Anyways. Any reviews are sounding worse and worse.... Damn
valariesmith's review
4.0
Hudson's protagonists stand on the verge of bad decisions, new beginnings and profound reckonings with the world as they struggle to discover who they are against the labels the world would apply to them. The stories Cultural Relativism and Skatepark were stand-outs for me, but I also loved Boy Box, the closing story, in which a character takes a vertiginous leap towards an exhilarating, and possibly hurtful, future. Is it weird to want a sequel to a short story collection?
readrunsea's review
5.0
I picked up this collection on a whim while browsing my local bookstore. I'd seen the cover on Melissa Febos' instagram and since she is my literary north star I reached for this slim volume and turned to a random page. That page told of a van full of vegan activists carting jars of menstrual blood to a protest, and it made me laugh so hard that I bought this book right away. And y'all, it only got better the more I read. Genevieve Hudson's writing is crystal clear but packs an imagery punch. Her characters are weird and her plots wonky, exposing the most delightful, disturbing, intriguing, and invisible corners of a mind, a life, a world. The story 'Holes' is literal perfection. Like, I don't think I'll ever read anything better or more complete. The collection, while full of dark spots, is hilarious and devastating and gets darker as it goes along- the second to last story, 'Transplant,' involves a sci-fi-esque element that sets it apart from the others (though spiritualism, astrology, and crystals abound- this book is super queer); and the last story, 'Boy Box,' is the most unsettling in my opinion. But I say that with the deepest love, because I *love* every last one of these stories. Read this okay that's all and thank you to Melissa Febos who never lets me down, the end.